A Piece of my Mind
by Julia451
Summary: One shot for 'Hide and Seek' haters. Raven gives Robin a piece of her mind following the episode's events. Keep in my mind it's not Robin I'm venting at personally but at the writers through Robin. Will television stereotypes of girls never change?


It was a day the likes of which the otherwise unsullied jungle had never experienced before. Below the surface in their rarely used secret lair (what team, though they have a residential headquarters, can function without a top-secret, underground lair?), Cyborg and Beast Boy were working out in the gym. In the ops center, the red-headed princess Starfire walked, that is, _hovered, _back and forth before a row of screens, her eyes darting from the clipboard in her hands to the security cameras and radar scans. Finally, Robin, the black haired, secretive, silent leader, sat nearby typing away at a computer. Every Titan was hard at work even during this no-one-knew-how-brief break from tracking down every villain in the world. Ever since the teens' worldwide organization had been very personally targeted by the Brotherhood of Evil, it had been non-stop fighting and action for the core members. Well, almost...

The operations center's double doors flew open with a bang that shook the whole complex. The boys ran from the gym to join Robin and Starfire, gathering to face an evidently very nettled Raven, hood down, black energy crackling, eyes afire with repressed rage.

"So..." Beast Boy spoke first, trying to break the ice, "How'd the mission go?"

"You want to guess?" the baby-sitter of the day hissed, walking towards their illustrious leader.

"The kids are safe, aren't they?" Robin asked, either completely oblivious or hoping to cut the tension by discussing business.

"Why you asking?" was Raven's answer. "Maybe you shouldn't have made me the baby-sitter if you don't think I could handle it," she continued sarcastically.

"Look, Raven, I know you're upset, but I had to..."

Raven cut off Robin as if she didn't hear him and began to pace around the room, not looking anyone in the eye. "But I'm sure you didn't think that. There's nothing I can't handle, after all. I once saved the entire universe from the most powerful demon in less than a minute. The day we met, **I** single-handedly destroyed the death ray that was about to vaporize our city, after I stopped you three from worthlessly turning the rest of a block to rubble, probably saving all four of you.

"My powers come from a Dark Side, a powerful monster inside of me, that unlike one superpowered friend of ours who shall remain nameless, **I **have the strength to control. I can heal, I can fly, I can move _or_ destroy anything from cars to mountains, I can move through solid matter _and _space... you know what? There's pretty much nothing I **can't **do!"

On the last note, Raven stopped and violently turned to face Robin directly. Beast Boy nervously muttered from behind him, "So, what's your point?"

"My point is: I would like to know," Raven explained as she walked up to Robin and kept walking so that he had to back up before her, "why in the world you decided that I'm such an expendable member you can waste my talents, _my talents_- out of all our powers, you can afford to waste _mine_ on **baby-sitting!**"

"I... I..." Robin stuttered, but Raven resumed pacing around the room, still face-to-face with him, and also resumed ranting.

"I don't care what everyone else was busy doing. You know I could handle anyone else's mission or all of them together. What credentials make me the best person for this miserable job? Why not send Beast Boy? He's the youngest and the most immature; he'd get along well with kids. Why not Cyborg? He's worked with kids before and really enjoys it. Or Starfire? But 'so what if she's fun and always happy and sweet and nurturing like the perfect nanny and tough like the perfect body guard? I'll assign _Raven_, the antisocial, cold, distant, scary half-demon to baby-sit! It's the perfect combination!' "

"I thought it would be good for you!" Robin finally tried to defend himself.

Raven backed up in boiling anger and crossed her arms. "It would be good to make me suffer? Well, now I know why you didn't send your girlfriend."

"Raven, come on!" Robin shouted, his fuse lit and now going just as quickly. "It's nothing personal. It was just process of elimination. Did you really expect me to send Cyborg or Beast Boy or... _me _to do this? Seriously... you're the only logical choice!"

Raven decided to ignore the fact that he hadn't acknowledged Starfire (she understood if he wanted to favor his girlfriend) and get right to the point. "Why? Why 'logically' did it have to be me? I make a great hero, I make a terrible baby-sitter... where's the logic? What criteria am I missing here?

"Oh, I know." She snapped her fingers and sarcastically clutched her forehead, feigning sudden enlightenment. "Silly me, I completely forgot. Sure, I can fly, I can lift cars and crush boulders, I can destroy and save the universe, but that doesn't matter. I'm least qualified for it, I enjoyed it least, I have the strongest, most useful, unstoppable abilities for battle, but how can it be helped? I'm a girl. Boys fight, girls take care of the kids! this is how things work, no matter what!

Raven turned on her heel and began walking out the door, glad she took a chance to voice her mind about this. "To think I thought things were different now in the twenty-first century. Thanks a lot. You may call me a hero, but this proves stereotypes of girls, super_heroine_ or not, will never change. Guess I should at least be happy I've been disillusioned. It's official: just like in stories and tales of magic and fighting going back hundreds of years, boys get to be the hero, girls get to be the prize. Oh, excuse me, one thing has changed: boys still get to be the hero, but girls now get to be the **baby-sitter**."


End file.
